Gov. Terry Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds visited the University of Iowa campus to attend an annual meeting with Faculty Senate and Staff Council officers on Thursday.
Three groups from the arts and humanities and the College of Education gave presentations to Branstad and Reynolds. One such group, known as the Girl History Detectives, included one dozen sixth-grade girls from Lemme Elementary School.
The girls recently launched a website detailing the life and accomplishments of their school’s namesake, Helen Lemme, with help from the Iowa History Connections program, curated by the University of Iowa’s Digital Studio for the Public Arts and Humanities in collaboration with the College of Education. The program connects Iowa teachers with online resources and databases to expand their instruction on state history. Assistant Professor Jason Harshman highlighted the program’s multicultural focus, and its ability to have an impact statewide, thanks to the online resources. Studio researcher and College of Education graduate student Lauren Darby presented a video about a recent session with Iowa teachers, and spoke on the program’s connection to the Lemme class and teacher Lisa Hall.
Branstad and Reynolds also heard from Interim DEO of Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies Rachel Williams, who runs the Women’s Studies Practicum. The program helps UI students provide creative and educational outreach services to the Iowa Correctional Facility for Women, and has served 400 women to date.
Christopher Merrill, director of the International Writing Program, spoke about the recent success of the UI’s Massive Open Online Courses, which have brought creative writing education to more than 24,000 people worldwide in the last year. He also discussed the recent success of Whitman Web, an initiative to bring the idea of American poetry to the world by translating the text and reading of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” into 15 different languages, including Russian, Arabic, and Portuguese.
“It really does show what the UI is doing for our community, state, and world, from working with the women’s prison, to reaching writers in Baghdad to helping teachers learn more about the state with Iowa History Connections,” says Branstad, who is a strong proponent of teaching state history.
Branstad and Reynolds also toured the UI Mobile Museum, a partnership between the UI Vice President for Research and Economic Development, the Office of the State Archaeologist, the UI Museum of Natural History, and the Old Capitol Museum. There they learned about three new exhibits in the museum: an exhibit on space exploration at the UI, curated by the Department of Physics and Astronomy; an exhibit on Iowans in World War II, curated by University of Iowa Libraries and Special Collections and the Iowa Women's Archives; and a water quality exhibit curated by the Department of Chemistry, the Iowa Geological Survey, and the Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination.
Science education students under the direction of Science Education Assistant Professor Leslie Flynn worked with scientists to develop water-themed curriculum that will accompany the Mobile Museum as it visits schools across Iowa, turning one short visit from the museum into nearly two weeks of extended learning. More than 200 hours of science education student and faculty time was donated to complete that project.
“We always appreciate meeting with them,” says Faculty Senate President Christina Bohannan. “Both the governor and lieutenant governor understand the importance of higher education at all levels, and we really enjoy having them here.”
